'cause it's hard to see from where I'm standin'

In her seminal analysis of Adolf Eichmann’s trial for crimes against the Jewish people, Hannah Arendt contrasts the Israeli government’s extrajudicial extraction of Eichmann from Argentina with that of the extrajudicial assassinations of Talaat Bey and Simon Petlyura, by Shalom Schwartzbard and Soghomon Tehlirian respectively, who protested the difficulty of seeking justice over state-sanctioned genocide against their peoples through the most efficacious means suggested (I forget by whom) of disobedience of unjust laws: One must break them and then demand to be punished for said transgression. She argued that the inherent justice in their actions (and subsequent acquittals) was due to the fact that they at the time had no state representative judiciary who could try their case through proper means, and thus put themselves at risk of trial unlike the Israeli agents who kidnapped Eichmann. In this she made a point about the Israeli government’s conduct of the trial – but not its result or their competence to try it – as to the statement however wittingly or otherwise it made about the nature of legal and political representation of a people, as compared to a nation, and the implications therein.

I found that this above other points she made diverged fundamentally from my worldview, for a conceptual reason of jurisdiction. If admission to the international stage of humanity – the existing “comity of nations” – and thus true protection of human rights requires a self-governing homeland, for which all those historically, ethnically, linguistically and culturally linked draw their political representation from – which is to say, the power of ethnic Russians in the Ukraine, for instance, stems from Russia, not their proportion or protection in the Ukrainian polity – then I am, have been, and will always be stateless. Or, rather, I’ve been by circumstance forced to develop a worldview which depends on a different font of support, not unlike traditional Marxist concepts of class consciousness: The rich seek to stay rich, the middle classes seek to become rich, and the proletariat, seeing no means of becoming rich for such a goal is far too distant even to comprehend, seeks equality for all.

This stems from the fact that the Cherokee Nation will never be a nation, for after all it cannot even determine its own citizenry, that power being granted solely from the United States Government’s adherence to their own census, the Dawes Rolls. Indeed, since there is an economic incentive to limit their own numbers in the form of federal subsidy and grants, the leadership of the current beneficiaries of such a system jealously guard induction to preposterously low populations and therefore neuter their own existence. This is also largely the case of Black America, in the sense that the connection with contemporary African societies is quite distant culturally, yet exist as the Ur-minorities in the American polity – a colonized people within the nation’s own homeland. Save for the craziness that was and is Liberia (though unlike us they did elect a female President), the only way forward is to enforce the American Great Experiment of eliminating “minority status” as codified in so many European societies for so long both politically and socially.

By definition, and thanks to being of mixed heritage, I have no choice but to come out against ethno-nationalism in all its forms, for it does not and cannot represent me in any way, and an international stage in which it is dominant is one that will eventually seek to destroy me. Arguably, my very existence is dependent on a system that has already eschewed such a social format and thus is the prime example of, and the largest proponent of, a system that is at least on paper ethnically and culturally neutral. That is to say, I see only one way forward, and that is to continue the Great Experiment because I depend on it, which means not only must I combat any and all administrations that attempt to define the country by ethnic or cultural lines but also must combat any and all who would seek to dismantle the administration for its failure to adhere to any one of a number of economic and political precepts, for this administration is the only one of its kind. Which is to say, I must oppose radical Marxists, even if I am a radical Marxist, for I cannot trust human tribalism not to rear its ugly head during an interregnum.

That presents a philosophical problem, for as Communism is a doctrine that many pundits, like those who would defend modern American Conservatism, argue has never failed because it had never been tried – that Communism has not failed, only that we have failed Communism – so too does this paint me in the corner that radical change is not only bloody and risky – as most radical reform results in disaster, both in the short and long term – and puts me in the direct firing line, thus I oppose it, but that it also means that under any other circumstance my political stance would also by definition be directly reflective of those circumstances and not the position I hold now, which would be a hard thing to argue to others not in my specific position should I seek allies. I am become an anti-tribal tribalist.

But then so too do minorities flock to cities such to the point that cities exist in their own social and political universe apart and distinct from the nation-state as a whole, which only means that, in my personal worldview, I’ve come full circle that my current state of existence – a mixed-blood minority in an ethnically-diverse city in a polyglot nation – is and has always been a mere blip in the long run of humanity, and that the circumstances that led to my existence have only cropped up a few times in history and then only briefly. If history is linear, I have much to fear. If history if cyclical, and it has every indication of being so, present administration included, then all I need to do is eat and die as me.

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In a nutshell

Words of an urban indian. Musings on the nature of civilized society, city forms and bureaucratic processes, class and race consciousness, complaining, ranting and more ranting, along with whatever the hell else piques one's interest nowadays.

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To quote H. L. Mencken, "The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office."